


Ahavat Olam [Everlasting Love]

by orphan_account



Category: You (TV 2018), You Series - Caroline Kepnes
Genre: Blood and Violence, Bondage, Delusions, F/M, Hate Sex, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, Love/Hate, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pregnant Sex, Punishment, Rape/Non-con Elements, Trapped, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22220353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Love catches Joe spying on the woman next door and decides to teach him a lesson.
Relationships: Joe Goldberg/Love Quinn
Kudos: 40





	1. Someone New (?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _Don't take this the wrong way.  
>  You knew who I was  
> with every step that I ran to you.  
> Only blue or black days,  
> electing strange perfections in any stranger I choose."_
> 
> _-Hozier_

Joe is terrified when he wakes up and doesn’t know where he is.

The last thing he remembers is staring over the fence that separates his yard from his neighbor’s and then - nothing. 

He tries to sit up and sharply exhales at the pain at the base of his skull. He slowly probes the back of his neck with his fingers. His hair is slick with blood and sweat. 

The sight of the droplets of blood smeared on his fingers makes his stomach turn. Joe takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. 

He groans and lowers his head to the ground.

The ground. It’s cold and hard and gray. Cement. Joe figures that wherever he is, he’s in some sort of garage or storage unit. Great.

Joe moans and turns his head to the side as a powerful wave of nausea comes over him. He coughs and heaves a small pile of vomit onto the floor. 

It’s mostly lemonade and toast, with tiny flecks of blood.

“Oh, poor baby. Let me clean you up.”

Joe flinches and his eyes widen when he sees Love looming over him. She leans down and tenderly wipes his mouth and chin with a small wad of Kleenex. 

She grunts and presses her free hand to her stomach. “Aw, she’s kicking. Here, feel.” 

She grabs Joe’s hand and squeezes so tightly he whimpers. Love frowns and kisses his knuckles in mock sympathy. 

“Oops, sorry. I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

Joe’s fear mixes with a reverent awe when he feels his daughter move. He pictures her pouting and twisting in agitation, angry that her father is being hurt.

Love is four and a half months pregnant, essentially midway through her gestation. 

At this point, their baby may be able to survive extraction from Love’s womb. Barely.

 _No,_ he thinks. It will be better for the baby if Love carries her to full term. It will be hard for him, but Joe reasons that his temporary discomfort is a small price to pay for his daughter’s well-being. She is all that matters. _She is all, she is all that matters…_

Joe bites his tongue and makes a sound like a dog whose paw has been stepped on. He feels dizzy and sick, and swallows the bile rising in his throat. 

“Ugh, God, my head is killing me. What...what did you do to me, Love?”

Love sighs and sits down on the ground beside him. She crosses her legs and gently slides Joe’s head onto her lap. The sundress she’s wearing is nearly the same shade as the blood that still steadily drips from his wound.

“I caught you staring at that woman next door. I got a little upset and hit you on the back of the head with a brick. That reminds me, I need to call a guy to realign the fire pit. Anyway, I hit you a lot harder than I meant to, because you collapsed like a sack of potatoes. I dragged you down here, hosed off the blood on the patio, and here we are.”

“Where…?”

“We’re in the basement. It’s pretty small and sketchy, more like a crawl space. Kind of surprised I didn’t find any corpses stashed down here.” 

Love snorts and laughs at Joe’s panicked expression. “Don’t worry, babe, I’m not gonna **_kill_** you. Jesus, what kind of woman do you think I am?”

Joe groans and feebly tries to squirm out of Love’s lap. She scowls and wraps her hands around his throat. 

“Don’t answer that. Whatever you say might make me actually **_want_** to kill you.” 

Love tightens her hold until Joe’s eyes bulge. He grips her hands and wheezes when she abruptly lets go. 

“Just keep your thoughts to yourself, Joe. Think about our baby girl. You wouldn’t want her to have to grow up without a father, would you?”

“N-no! Of course not.” Joe rasps. He sounds like he’s chain smoked an entire pack of cigarettes. 

His chest aches and burns as he starts to breathe again. He coughs weakly and tastes blood from where he bit his tongue.

Just, he hopes, from where he bit his tongue.

As if reading his mind, Love sighs and lightly slaps his side. At her touch, Joe twitches and screams in pain. In his frenzy he moves off of Love’s lap. 

He grunts as his head hits the floor with a dull thud.

“Oh yeah, I might have bashed you in the side with the same brick after you fainted. Broke a few of your ribs, I’m sure. Coupled with the concussion, I’d say you’re gonna be out of commission for a while.”

“No...don’t do this to me. You don’t have to do this!” Joe whines. His tongue hangs out of his mouth and he pants like an exhausted dog. Which, to Love, is about what he is at this moment. She frowns mournfully and reaches over to twine her fingers through his curly brown hair. She tugs at the roots, and Joe moans at the sharp stinging sensation in his scalp.

“But I do have to do this, Joe. You left me no other choice. There’s no way I’m going to tolerate you lusting after another woman. You may have gotten away with that bullshit in past relationships, but you know I won’t stand for it. I thought you loved me.”

The last sentence is almost pleading. Joe takes Love’s hand, and with a groaning gasp slowly pulls himself up to a sitting position. He leans back against the wall, the cold cement soothing his aching head. “I do love you,” he murmurs haltingly. “And I’m sorry. I just...I can’t change who I am.”

Love’s eyes narrow. She huffs and slaps Joe’s hand away when he reaches for her. “Don’t fucking touch me. I can’t even look at you right now!” 

She sniffs and practically lunges to her feet. She hastily walks away and leaves Joe helpless in the darkness.


	2. Closer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _I want to f-ck you like an animal  
>  I want to feel you from the inside.  
> I want to f-ck you like an animal  
> My whole existence is flawed.  
> You get me closer to God."_
> 
> -Nine Inch Nails

By the time Love comes back, Joe is starving.

He grabs the small plastic bowl from her and shovels the cereal into his mouth with his bare hands. 

Love stands back and clasps her hands behind her back. Her expression is unreadable.

“Wow. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a man eat dog kibble that fast. Take it easy.”

 _ **Dog kibble?**_ Joe coughs and spits up the small brown pulverized chunks.

“God, I thought those were Cocoa Puffs.” He sticks a finger down his throat to prompt his gag reflex and throws up the rest of the kibble. He would rather starve than be so debased.

Love covers her mouth with her hand to hide her malevolent smile. “Of course you would think that. They’re your favorite, after all.” 

Joe whimpers and pours the rest of the kibble onto the floor. He picks the bowl up and breaks it apart. How could he have been so stupid?

Hunger is stronger than reason, he knows. He has no idea how long he’s been down here, but it’s been long enough that he’s had to pee and empty his bowels a few times. He uses a black mop bucket as a makeshift toilet, and the shirt off his back as toilet paper.

It’s balled up in the corner, saturated with piss and shit. Joe holds his nose and breathes through his mouth. “Love, I’m sorry,” he says desperately. “I’m sorry!”

Love smiles sadly and crouches down in front of him. She trails her fingers over Joe’s sides, then digs her nails into his flesh. Joe grunts and tries to scoot back away from her. She follows him and sinks her teeth into his neck.

“No you’re not. Not yet.” Love turns her head to kiss Joe’s throat, jaw, and ear, leaving a small trail of blood.

Joe can’t help but moan when Love slides his pants down his legs and slips her fingers into the waistband of his boxers. 

He trembles as she traces the length of his penis.

Joe wraps an arm around her neck and pulls himself up. He gasps frantically, his frenzied breaths rustling her hair as she strokes him. Suddenly, he grabs her and roughly twists her around. He lifts her dress and tears her red silk panties, ripping the material. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you another pair.”

He holds Love’s hips and shoves his cock between her legs from behind. Love bends down eagerly and laughs. Joe moves his hand over and slides his fingers into her vulva. Love moans, engulfed in a tidal wave of pleasure, closing her legs on him. Joe starts to thrust hard against Love, sliding on the wetness between her thighs.

When he is about to come, Love abruptly jerks away from him. 

She turns to face him, and before he can speak, Joe screams at the searing, white hot pain between his legs that is so powerful he passes out. 

When he comes to, he sees Love towering over him, waving what looks like a deflated beige balloon in his face.

“What the... ** _hell_**?” Joe groans and struggles to sit up, leaning heavily against the wall.

His head still hurts, though the pain has slightly abated. His ribs hurt. His dick is killing him. 

_Oh God..._

“No. You didn’t. You wouldn’t.”

“But I did, and now you’re _**a real Jew**_ , tried and true.” Love’s eyes gleam. 

“And don’t bother giving me some spiel about how you’re not. Whoever your mother was, whatever she was, you can’t tell me ‘Goldberg’ is just some boring German name. That’s about as believable as me trying to pretend the Quinns are anything other than Irish Catholics. Culturally speaking, of course.”

In spite of himself, Joe laughs hoarsely. Ray and Dottie are hardly Catholic. 

Actually, even after being around them for six months, he can’t tell what the hell they are. Not that he cares.

“Why do you care?” Joe rasps. “You never brought up the subject of religion before. Since when does it matter to you what I am or what I’m not?”

Love kneels down beside Joe. She takes his hand and presses it firmly against her stomach. 

“I used to not care, but that was before her. Now that we’re bringing a child into the world, we need to have some kind of system. Some set of beliefs and values we can pass on to our daughter. I wasn’t brought up in church. The only exposure to religion I’ve had was when my parents sent me to an ashram in Sonoma when I graduated high school. So you see, it’s up to you to reestablish the Goldberg family tradition.”

“The Goldberg family tradition.” Joe laughs bitterly and clutches his side. Joe Jr. hurts more, but the prospect of handling his penis in front of Love in this context is unconscionably sickening. He shudders from the agony and the slick feel of blood and cum on his legs and thighs.

“Y’know...my family was...nonreligious. We...never went to...services.” Joe gasps and groans. 

When Love reaches over and gently wipes his member with a damp cloth, he can’t help but sob. Love frowns and kisses him wordlessly.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting, Joe. In time, you’ll see that this was the right thing to do. Remember, we all do crazy things sometimes to protect the ones we love. I love you, and I love our daughter. I love you both so much I can hardly breathe sometimes. You know that, don’t you, Joe? I love you so much I was willing to hurt you to help you! Joe, please say something. Talk to me.”

Joe moans and closes his eyes. “What d’you want me t’say?”

He slurs and mumbles his words as if he’s drunk. He can’t remember feeling this lightheaded since Forty spiked his seltzer water with half a sheet of LSD. 

Love is saying something, but he’s not listening anymore.

All he wants to do is go to sleep. 

So he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may be the most f-cked up the author's ever written. 
> 
> Seriously, she made herself nauseous writing it. (She's also sorry if Love seems a little OOC.)
> 
> The author is trying to capture her rage, and her need to explain herself as doing things for Joe's own good and the good of their child.


	3. I Hate Everything About You (Why Do I Love You?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only when I start to think about you, I know.  
> Only when you start to think about me do you know...?
> 
> -Three Days Grace

Joe feels a sharp sting in his chest and wakes with a panicked shriek.

He leaps to his feet and looks around wildly. By the time his eyes focus on Love, his momentary surge of strength is gone and he collapses back against the wall, exhausted. He stands trembling on the balls of his feet and slowly slides to the floor. Love clucks her tongue and presses her fingers into the side of Joe’s neck. 

The pulse beneath his skin beats frantically.

“Poor baby,” Love coos. Her lips brush across his cheek and her breath tickles his ear. “You really had me worried for a minute. I had just started to think you might not wake up again.” Her voice breaks on a sudden sob. “Then I’d be left all alone, widowed for the second time. I don’t think I can go through that again, Joe.”

Love turns away to hide her tears. She takes a moment to compose herself before she turns back to him. The sight of Joe sprawled out before her, naked and bleeding and defenseless, is surreal. She has never seen him brought so low. 

The knowledge that she was able to do what no other woman has managed to do thrills her, leaves her nearly breathless.

Within this space, this dank, foreboding cellar, Love feels an absurd mixture of liberation and confinement. Joe himself seems to be a part of the darkness, almost its embodiment, summoning her into the shadows with him. All this, and he hasn’t spoken a word. Love stares down at him as if she is bewitched.

Joe moans as she watches him and lifts his eyes to return her gaze. He remembers times past when Love looked at him like she is now. She’s stared at him often, and left her mark on him more times than he can count. With her teeth and her hands and tongue she has branded him, and he has allowed her to. 

His mouth curves into a rueful grimace. “Bitch,” he mutters darkly. Love can’t tell if he’s amused or genuinely afraid of her. Maybe both.

She kneels down and spreads her hand across his chest. Her touch, one of insistent dominance, rouses Joe. 

“I love you,” she whispers. Joe whimpers and tilts his head back, his throat exposed to her, his penis stiffening behind her. Love reaches a hand down and lightly touches the tip. Joe snorts in fear and writhes beneath her. The wound is still fresh, the skin barely scabbed over.

Love kneads the tender glans between her fingers until Joe cries out and grabs her arm. Her sleeve rips, and the look Love gives him makes Joe freeze. She slides her fingers down the length of his shaft and drives her fingernails into him. She feels the pain she causes travel through his body and exit his mouth in an agonized groan.

“I love you,” she says again. She kisses Joe, pulls his lower lip between her teeth and bites down until she tastes his blood. Joe threads his fingers through her hair and pulls it until Love breaks away. “Stop! You’re hurting me.” 

Joe doesn’t stop. He holds on, until Love opens her teeth against his shoulder and bites him hard. Joe howls like a wounded dog. 

He shoves Love away from him, holding her at arm’s length. Both of them gasp for air.

Her teeth marks burn his shoulder. Joe touches them and smiles faintly at the beads of blood on his finger. 

“Is that right? What would you call what you’re doing to me?” Love scowls at him tearfully. “Helping you,” she says breathlessly. “I’m teaching you a lesson.”

“Are you?” Joe purrs and puts his hand around her throat. He squeezes and presses his thumb into her vein to make her pulse throb in her ear. He could easily end this, end her right here and now. He pulls her dress down with his free hand to expose her breasts. Love gasps when Joe lightly pricks her nipple with a fingernail. 

He smiles darkly, sending a wave of heat between her legs. 

Love whimpers and pulls away from him. When she stands up, he follows her, until he has her pressed back against the opposite wall. He rips her dress down her body and binds her wrists in his hand. Love feels a surge of fear. She is trapped, the tables have turned. Joe leans down and closes his teeth on her breast.

Love flinches at the pain and feels Joe start to suck hard on her skin, sending torrents of shame and pleasure coursing through her whole body. She struggles in Joe’s hold and tries to buck him off. He grunts and pins her against the wall. He reaches a hand between her legs and slides a finger inside her.

 _ **“No!”**_ Love screeches and claws Joe’s cheek. He inhales sharply and unhands her. He covers the side of his face and glares at her hatefully.

Even in the dull light Love can see the marks of her teeth on his neck, bruised and bloody. He is beautiful, and he is hers. All hers.

 _“Don’t touch me,”_ she orders. She touches his chest with her fingertips. _“Don’t even **move**._ The adrenaline I injected you with will wear off soon. You’ll pass out again.”

“So what? I don’t give a damn.” Joe comes forward and wraps an arm around her neck, pulling her face against the smooth skin of his chest. Love kisses him, then brutally sinks her teeth into him. Joe grabs her and drags her roughly towards his thrusting cock. “Easy,” he growls. “You should be nicer to me, Love.”

 _ **“Nice?”**_ Love shrieks. She quivers under his touch. She cannot move an inch. 

He holds her hips so roughly she is sure she will have finger-shaped bruises tomorrow. “Fuck you!”

“Yes,” Joe mumbles huskily. “I want you to. You know you want to, too.” 

Love feels a surge of warmth as his seed leaks into her.


	4. (Isn't It) Lovely?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _I hope someday I'll make it out of here,  
>  Even if it takes all night, or a hundred years.  
> Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near,  
> Wanna feel alive, outside I can fight my fear._"
> 
> -Billie Eilish and Khalid

“Joey, it’s time to get up now. Don’t be scared, honey, I’m here.”

“Wha…?” Joe sniffs and opens his eyes to find his mother sitting across the room, her legs folded under her. She is wearing the same outfit as the last time he saw her in his dream-memories: her favorite black Nirvana T-shirt, jeans, and peach flip flops. She smiles gently and brings a finger to her lips.

“Shh, don’t talk too loud. You’ll wake them up.”

 _“Them?”_ Joe whispers hoarsely. He coughs and looks down at Love, cradled in his arms. The tattered remnants of her dress serve as a coverlet. She mumbles incoherently and nestles against him, her breath rustling his chest hair.

“Yes, Joey, **_them_** : my daughter-in-law and the baby. You really don’t know what trouble is until you’ve woken a sleeping baby. Good God, you’re gonna lose a lot of sleep. You’ll age ten years in one. You’ll never be the same.”

She sighs sadly and shrugs her shoulders. “I did the best I could with you. I wish it had been enough, but you were such a handful. I’m sorry, Joey. I wasn’t always there when you needed me to be.”

“It’s OK, Mom. It’s like you said, you did the best you could.” Joe’s voice catches. “You did the best you could do, with the resources you had. I don’t blame you for anything. I’m scared, though, Mom. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“What do you mean, Joey?” His mother frowns and furrows her brow. “Why do you have to do anything?”

“I have to do right by her. I don’t even know what that means. I mean, beyond the basics of knowing what **_not_** to do: don’t leave, don’t raise your voice, don’t use her as a punching bag.” 

He laughs bitterly at the last bit. Of course he will never raise his hand against his daughter. Or Love, for that matter. Never in anger, and in front of their child. 

He hopes.

His mother chuckles softly. Suddenly, she’s standing beside him. She leans down and kisses the top of his head. Joe gasps when she traces the cuts on his cheek, pressing her nails against the imprints left by Love’s. She inhales sharply. “It looks like you’re the one who got the short end of the stick. You’re the one being used as a punching bag, so to speak. Or at least a scratching post.”

Joe titters and moans. He coughs weakly and spits up sputum tinged with blood. He idly wonders if it’s just from where he bit his tongue or lip, or if he’s bleeding internally. He wouldn’t be surprised, either way. Joe feebly wipes the hocked up snot out of Love’s hair and tilts his head back to rest it against the wall. He has a fever, and the cold cement soothes him.

He briefly closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his mother has vanished. 

Forty is standing in her place, wearing a white bathrobe and bedroom slippers. He scowls sullenly, his arms folded over his chest.

“Oh, no.” Joe groans and blinks rapidly, hoping Forty will disappear. “Oh, fuck! What did she give me? What else was in that syringe besides adrenaline?”

“Oh, I get it. You think my sister injected a little acid into your bloodstream. You wish, asshole. You don’t need any kind of help to get down to funky town. Your headspace is _**seriously fucked up**_. It’s the scariest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. Well, afterlife.”

“B-bullshit. You’re not really here. You’re just a...figment of my fucked up imagination.” Forty chortles and abruptly smashes his forehead into Joe’s. Joe moans raggedly and holds his head. He clutches Love limply with his other hand, amazed that she hasn’t woken up. 

“OK, that hurt. Forty, you dick, I already have a headache! What’re you trying to do, kill me?”

“Oh, you mean like how you killed Beck? How you killed....who knows how many people you’ve killed? I gotta tell ya, Broseph: it kind of sucks at first. It hurts a lot, but then you’re all light and airy. Not happy, necessarily. Not really much of anything. It’s kind of boring, now that I think about it.”

“But wait...if you’re a ghost, why did I feel you? Why were you able to hit me?”

Forty huffs and rolls his eyes impatiently. “It’s not like the movies, unfortunately. You can’t walk through walls or any of that cool shit. Nah, you pretty much just stay the same as you were when you were alive. But, like, you don’t have to eat and stuff, which is working wonders for me. Now I don’t have to diet anymore.”

“Ha, ha. You’re hilarious, Forty. Really, I mean it. I miss you, man.” Joe sniffles, surprised by the depth and sincerity of the feeling. “You may have been a pompous, arrogant spoiled brat, but you were funny. You were real, Forty. Love misses you. She loved you so much.”  
Joe leaves it unspoken that he thinks she loved Forty more than himself, in some ways. They’re different kinds of love, to be sure, but ever since Forty’s death, Love has changed. She’s not the same woman he fell in love with.

“I know what you’re thinking, Joe, and let me fill you in on something: Love was never the woman you fell in love with. She was never some wilted, fragile flower. You were never her hero, never some knight in shining armor on a white horse. She didn’t need that, she never did. Love is the one who rides in to protect the helpless. She saved me. Maybe she can save you, too.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Joe moans weakly. 

He starts to hyperventilate, and when he looks at his hands, he notices a bluish tint to his fingernails. His pulse pounds in his ears. He’s going into shock.

When Love wakes up a few minutes later, he is dead to the world.


	5. Shit

Joe wakes to the smell of shit. 

He’s in a small, cramped room and there’s a bright white light. A TV is on, tuned to some idiotic game show, and it’s way too loud. 

He grunts and slings an arm over his eyes. “I’m in Hell. That’s gotta be it. I’ve died and gone to Hell. Figures.”

“Oh no, man, this ain’t Hell. It sure is hot, but it’s not _that_ bad.” 

At the sound of the familiar voice, Joe shoots upright in the bed. He blinks his eyes blearily and stares in disbelief at the real Will Bettelheim, sitting just a few feet to his right in a gray metal folding chair. He’s wearing a plain black T-shirt and jeans, twirling a remote control in his hand. He smiles at Joe in amusement and playfully waves the fingers of his other hand.

“Or, maybe you _are_ dead. Maybe I’m your conscience, here to keep you company while you wait to be summoned to the Great White Throne for judgment.” 

Joe’s eyes narrow and he bites his lip in confusion. “The Great White Throne? Judgment? Will, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh, my bad. There’s this book in the Bible - Revelation, the last one - where Jesus brings God’s Kingdom down to Earth and judges everybody who’s ever lived for the things they’ve done. If their name is found written in the book of life, they get to live forever. If it’s not, they get thrown into ‘the lake of fire.’ What most people would think of as Hell. But then there’s a voice that says ‘death and hell get cast into the lake of fire.’ I don’t know, man, I don’t believe in that horseshit myself. I’m just telling you what I was taught. Don’t look at me that way.”

“I’m...not looking at you any certain way.” 

Joe yawns and holds his hand out in front of him. His fingernails have grown nearly half an inch. “So, where are we? What’s going on?”

“Ah...I don’t know how to tell you this, except to come right out and say it.” Will reaches over and takes Joe’s hand. The gesture makes both men’s cheeks redden with embarrassment. Will clears his throat and takes a deep breath. 

“We’re in the Philippines. Now, hold on a minute, relax, OK?” Joe’s grip on Will’s hand progressively tightens as he tells him what’s gone down in the past few months.

“I was worried when a few months had gone by and you hadn’t checked in. That was so unlike you I decided to come see how you were doing. Nice place you got there, that little gated community in Newport Beach. But your girl, she’s not so nice. No offense, man.” Will’s eyes widen sympathetically.

“Anyway, I just happened to be there when she slammed a brick into the back of your head. I’m lucky I bit my tongue, or I might’ve yelled. I mean, I know how it feels.” Will shoots Joe a rueful smile. 

“I got it in gear and hid for a while. I paid off the gatekeeper and posed as him for a couple weeks. She dragged you down to the basement in your new house, and she fucking **_tortured_** you, man. All that time. The only reason you’re still alive is because I finally had enough and busted in guns blazing, so to speak. I let little Miss Quinn - sorry, _Mrs. Goldberg_ \- know that I wouldn’t call the police, _if_ she let me get you help. I paid off some people, got you on a plane to Manila, and you’ve been here ever since. That was...gosh, almost five months ago. You’ve been in a coma, Joe. You had pancreatitis, peritonitis, a punctured lung, three broken ribs, and a bad infection on your uh, Johnson.”

Will blushes again, his whole face turning pink. 

“Not that I was uh, deliberately looking at it or anything. Crazy bitch had you stripped and bloody. It had been almost two weeks since you’d eaten. It smelled like a fucking sewer down there. There were a few empty water bottles, so she kept you hydrated, barely. She just stood there with her arms crossed and tears in her eyes while I got you out of there.”

“She just...let you take me? Just like that?” Joe chuckles and runs his hand through his hair. He grabs tufts of it and yanks until Will takes his hand. 

“Yeah, just like that. Stop it. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I guess you’re right.” Joe laughs bitterly and slips his hand out of Will’s grip. “So what have you been up to while I’ve been in hibernation?”

“Good one.” Will sneers and rolls his eyes. “I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone. Gigi broke up with me. I found a little one-bedroom condo. I work as a cashier in a supermarket now. You’ll stay with me until you figure out your next move. OK?”

“Yeah. OK.” Joe sighs. “Thanks, Will.” His eyes widen. “You said I’ve been in a coma for five months. That means Love has had...that means my child has been born, doesn’t it?”

Will’s face falls. “Look man, I don’t know how to tell you this, but...yeah, she’s been born.” 

He grins and ducks as Joe takes a half-hearted swing at him.

“Fuck you! You really had me scared for a minute. You have to understand that I was only with Love because of the baby. I never would have stayed with her otherwise.”

“I hear you. Wanna see your little girl?” Will smiles and holds out his phone. 

On the screen is a hi-resolution photo of a newborn baby in a small portable bed. She’s wrapped in a soft pink blanket, with a huge pink bow around her forehead. 

“Wow.” Joe sobs and buries his face in the sheet. “She’s so beautiful. She’s perfect! And Will...”

“Yeah, Joe?” Will beams.

“Please call the nurse. I’m tired of this shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for now, folks. I may (and most likely will) revisit Joe in the near future. Then again, I may not. Any way the wind blows, I guess. I write whatever and whenever the Muses dictate. Thanks for reading. ✌️

**Author's Note:**

> Let's be honest, a lot of you wanted to slap Joe silly or wring his neck for his stupidity in the season 2 finale. 
> 
> This little rage fic satisfies my desire to see Joe punished without him actually ending up behind bars. 
> 
> Sure, Love may be crazy, but she's also crazy in love. 
> 
> Like Joe, she only did bad things to protect people she loved, as she saw it.
> 
> The title comes from a Hebrew prayer, so I guess it's kind of blasphemous. Sorry? I couldn't resist the irony of it, especially when someone (Forty?) asked him if he was a 'self-hating Jew.'


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